Writing Woes: A note on those the American education system left behind

So our company E-mail is down and unfortunately the work that I need is on the E-mail system. So I guess I'll just blog.

On Wednesday nights I teach a writing class for adults at the local literacy council and it's been very frustrating trying to make them understand subject-verb agreement.

We have been drilling on when to use "am, is, are" for about a year now and people still don't get it. While they are testing well with fill in the blanks, their writings are not reflecting what we're studying in class. Everything is still "they is" and "I are." I feel very discouraged sometimes.

Last week we added "was, were" to our studies and that was a disaster. They were putting are and is in the blanks even though I kept saying "Put only one of two words in the blanks - was or were." Not even close. And this is an advanced class. They supposedly read on about a fifth grade level. (Although I know some of them are closer to a first grade level.)

How do you explain these basic concepts to people in a way that will stick in their heads? We only have an hour a week. (This semester my writing class has been combined with a reading class, so we do one hour of reading followed by one hour of writing. An hour is barely long enough for me to explain their assignment so everyone understands.) I tell them to study at home, give them homework. It's a rare student that does either. I'm not sure how effective this set up is. If someone really wants to learn to read and write, they need to spend at least an hour a night working on it, I think. I wonder if I should switch to personal tutoring. Maybe it's easier to see a student's growth on that level.

Anyone have any thoughts, ideas on teaching adults?